Pohulianka park

ID:
2013

Lviv’s wooded Pohulianka Park is a favorite relaxation spot for
city residents. It is located in southeast Lviv between Pasichna,
Washington and Zelena Streets, and the Lychakiv Cemetery. In the
17th and 18th centuries farms were located on
the territory which lay just outside the city limits; by the
beginning of the 19th century it had come under the
ownership of the attorney Franciszek Węgliński,
and was later owned by restaurateur Johann Diestl
and brewer Johann Klein. The area was
designated as a forested public park in 1940, its woods are
predominantly beech and hornbeam.

History

Lviv’s wooded Pohulianka Park has a long and rich history. In the
17th century the territory the park currently occupies was
owned by Lviv burgomaster (mayor) Jan Attelmajer. For the
insignificant sum of 6 zloty per year, he leased out the land which
reached nearly to Snopkova and Vynnykiv, settling tenant farm workers
on the land and establishing the “Attelmajer Apiary”.
Allelmajer’s son-in-law - Maciej Kuczankowicz
– inherited the land from the mayor. In 1672 the territory was
razed by Turkish forces. In the mid-18th century a
subsequent owner - Jan Złotorowicz
– managed to acquire the neighboring property as well. Following
his death, the land and its attachments were divided between the
Atanasiewicz and Dobrucki families. In 1789, appellate court
counselor Krzysztof Deyma bought the lower
section of the property from the Dobruckis; this section comprises
the current Pohulianka Park. In 1799, Alojzy Gintowt Dziewiątkowski
purchased the land from the Deyma family for 18,000 zloty, (Jaworski,
1911, pp 289-290).

20,000 zloty was the cost when well-known Lviv attorney Franciszek
Węgliński
later purchased the land. In the words of Ivan Krypiakevych,
“Węgliński
was a talented man, jovial, friendly, as well as rich, and gathered a
sizeable entourage around himself of writers and artists, and spent
many a good occasion with them on his Pohulianka property”,
(Krypiakevych, 1991, p111). Indeed, it was during this “Węgliński
Period” that the territory received the “Pohulianka”
designation, or alternatively, “Węgliński’s
Woods”. In 1821, restaurateur Johann Diestl
bought the land from the Węgliński
heirs for the sum of 5,060 Dutch Ducats and proceeded to establish
his beer garden here. Adam Krajewski
reports of this phenomenon that “the custom of the garden
restaurant came here from the west with the German village
constables…hardly half-a-century had passed and this custom, and so
many other German practices, fit in so well here, like mushrooms
after a rain, turning this place more or less distant from the city
center into a very sociable location…” (Krajewski, 1909, p52).

Ivan Krypiakevych tells a story taken from the accounts of historian
Franciszek Jaworski which paints a vivid
picture of Pohulianka during the time of Johann Diestl: “in 1825, a traveler described his time at
Pohulianka by telling that ‘there was such a ruckus in the
restaurant, a big company of beer drinkers. Elegant locals, dressed
up in their finery, the real “high and mighty”; in hats and tails
and fringed pants, they looked like harlequins from the circus.’
Our traveler strolled about with the company along steep grove paths,
observed a bubbling spring and went on: ‘we forced our way through
the thick growth to the top of the hill and the admirable trees which
stand there to rule over Pohulianka. Such divine scenery was
revealed before our eyes. All around us high hills with valleys in
between, covered with trees with the barely-visible steeple of a
little chapel poking through. Pristine silence commanded the space,
interrupted only by the croak of a toad to break the hush. In this
place at the top of the hill, carpeted in forest moss, the capital
was forgotten, as were our obligations, and with bursting hearts, yet
silently, for there were no words to describe it, we looked now to
each other, now to the tree branches over us trembling as if
unwillingly in the gentle breeze. We took for ourselves some of the
fair flower that grows in that pleasing spot, and grieving, turned to
depart from that place where nature’s charm smiles on us from every
leaf, abides in every blossom, there where our minds are as
untroubled by all that is base and are as calm as the untroubled
waters of the nearby pond…” (Krypiakevych, 1991, p111-112).

In 1848, the territory passed again into new ownership, the Diestl
heirs selling the parcel to JohannKlein
for 15,500 guilders. Klein, a brewer, tore down the old construction
there, partly drained the pond and built his brewery there in its
place. The main means of attraction of the townfolk to the ‘new’
Pohulianka became Klein Beer, which was considered to be Lviv’s
best. The beer went down well with the featured dish at Klein’s
park restaurant – pasties and roast chicken – hailed throughout
the town. In the park one could also sample ice cream made fresh at
the Maison sweetshop summer pavilion.

With the appearance later of small industry and real estate
development in the area, Pohulianka began to lose some of its charm
as a recreation area. During the First World War much of its beech
forest was harvested for firewood, park paths were overgrown, and the
area went to seed. Nonetheless, with time the area would begin to
enjoy a new era of popularity.

Pohulianka Public Park was created in 1940. When the work began to
clear the territory to be used as a park, a small pond was revealed
near the central park lane. During the World War II German
occupation work on the park was halted, only to resume after the war.
In 1962 the design for the Pohulianka forested park was drawn up and
subsequently carried out.

Architecture

The park is located in southeast Lviv, along the Pasika Creek gulch
and the on the heights which ring it east of the city center. The
underground confluence of Pasika Creek with Soroka Creek (below the
far end of Shevchenko Prospect), form the headwaters of the Poltva
River. The Pohulianka hills are part of the Lviv Heights.

A contemporary map of Lviv shows that Pohulianka Park occupies a
triangular territory between Pasichna Street on the northeast, Zelena
and Washington Streets on the south, and Banakha Street on the
northwest. Pohulianka Street leads to the park’s central lane,
which is otherwise accessible by taking city tram #7 and exiting at
the last stop across from the park’s main entrance.

The park’s northern section borders the former territory of the
Tsetnerivka – the Lviv University Botanical Garden. Near the
northwestern edge of the park stands the Galician Child and Youth
Arts Center at 29 Vakhnianyna Street. Unfortunately, with the
establishment of the Center in 1984 the landscaping of the park’s
western section was altered significantly. Farther on, at the place
of the former Klein Brewery stand the dilapidated structures of an
old winery (26 Pohulianka Street).

A former Armenian Benedictine monastery chapel is located on the park
grounds, now the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Our Lady of Perpetual Help
Church. A new residential structure is under construction on
Shafaryk Street on the park’s southeastern ridge.

The park’s central lane, with artificial ponds running along it,
serves as the territory’s functional axis. The lane moves through
a small valley which divides the park in two – northeast and
southwest. The lane is an extension of Pohulianka Street and
continues to Pasichna and Washington Streets. Hiking paths are cut
into the terrain of the surrounding park slopes. It’s possible to
walk the perimeter of the park on paths with access to scenic
viewpoints from a number of different places in Pohulianka.

The park was created around a natural stand of beech and hornbeam
forest. The park woods are largely beech, the growth of which marks
the northeastern limit of that species’ range in Europe. According
to information available at the plaque at the park entrance, birch,
maple, and sycamore also grow on the property.